Kristen creates work in a variety of disciplines including printmaking, sculpture, drawing and photography. Her recent and ongoing work Tread is comprised of sculpture built with construction debris. Her assemblages incorporate materials normally masked from view including iron nails, worm-holed beams and electrical boxes. Elements that were once essential to domestic infrastructure now serve as sculptural components in her work. Kristen sees these pieces as objects that hold power not only in the symbolic sense, but in the way they provide a tangible link between past and present.

A graduate of Purchase College (B.F.A) and Brooklyn College (M.A.), Kristen DeFontes was a student of printmaking and art of the book under Antonio Frasconi. While obtaining her graduate degree at Brooklyn College, Kristen studied drawing with Elizabeth Murray.